Matt Kaczkowski ’13 – This summer I was lucky to have the opportunity to be an intern for the NBA basketball division of Octagon Sports Marketing, one of the largest athlete management firms in the world and I wanted to share how my Wabash training and experience helped me to get the job and to have a great experience.

Since Octagon is an immense company with upwards of 800 staff in 22 countries across 6 continents, securing summer internships is very competitive. I had to write essays, analyze a sports marketing case and present my conclusions to a panel of executives in Washington DC, . . . just to get the job! Little did I know, I would face competition from students from schools such as Northwestern, Georgetown, University of Michigan, USC, Penn State and many others. Fortunately, my Wabash training enabled me to think critically and communicate effectively. I knew there would be stiff competition but I kept fighting. Even though there were 580 intern candidates all from bigger schools, I was lucky to be their FIRST hire for the Octagon 2012 internship program.

As an intern in the basketball division, I had a variety of opportunities. The company afforded me the chance to interact on a daily basis with Octagon clients such as Wesley Matthews (Portland Trailblazers), Ryan Anderson (New Orleans Hornets), Landry Fields (Toronto Raptors), David West (Indiana Pacers), and Stephen Curry (Golden State Warriors). My role in the department involved draft preparation, statistical analysis and coordination for Octagon rookie clients and marketing/endorsement partnerships for current NBA players. I helped coordinate the Octagon rookies’ schedules of workouts and summer leagues. I provided marketing ideas for both Matthews and Curry that will be enacted later this year with a number of companies in Portland, OR and Raleigh, NC respectively.

This summer gave me a great perspective on the sports industry. The chance to observe and work with basketball agents was amazing. Octagon held a weekly speaker series in addition to a couple of team projects that helped me get a feel for a few different areas of the company. I was given tremendous insight into the hiring process, partnerships research, and logistics that go into the sports world. I had a fantastic time and I’m grateful for the experience and exposure.

The Octagon experience allowed me to put my Wabash liberal arts education to work in the sports world. The strengths of communication skills, empirical skills and critical thinking gleaned from my work at Wabash allowed me to be successful in my work this summer. I owe my success to all of my instructors, coaches and the folks at Career Services who helped me at various steps in my journey. You don’t realize how well Wabash prepares you until you get out in the world.

Josh Jones ’14 – For most of my summer, I’ve worked as an intern at the Schroeder Center for Career Development at Wabash College. During this time, I’ve learned many techniques to help improve not only my job-seeking skills but also to help me help others in this area as well. Throughout this time, my partner and I have worked on many projects from organizing the Community Fair to exploring a Wabash-owned area of land known as “The Patch” and figuring out ways that this area can be used by students.

In the first week of work, I went through Peer Career Advisor training. This training was an important piece of my internship experience, as it not only helped me familiarize myself with what Career Services offers, but also help me learn to help others with resume editing and advice. One problem that the Career Services building runs across is getting students involved with the programs that we offer. So, part of my job this summer was coming up with some ideas that could help bring more people into the office throughout the school year. One of the projects that we did to help this was to create a Pinterest page dedicated to informing students of what we offer along with other useful tidbits of information.

The largest project of the summer by far had to be organizing the Community Fair. Each year, Career Services holds the fair in order to help both new students and returning students get acquainted with some of the businesses that Crawfordsville has to offer. Each year around 75 businesses attend and nearly 600 students show up to see the fair. In order to get the businesses’ attention, my partner and I traveled throughout Crawfordsville to find businesses that would be interested in being a part of the Community Fair. Since I am not from around Crawfordsville, I was baffled at how many businesses there were in Crawfordsville. For more information about the upcoming event, go to www.wabash.edu/careers/fair.

As part of my internship as a project and event management intern at the Schroeder Center for Career Development at Wabash College, I took the opportunity to plan an externship with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. The officer who escorted me on my externship was Patrolman Leon Essig, a police officer of eleven years. I plan on pursuing a career somewhere in the field of law enforcement after I graduate from Wabash College and I wanted to take this opportunity to see some of the responsibilities that a career in law enforcement would entail.

This internship has been worthwhile knowing that the work I put in this summer will help both current and future students with their careers and hopefully their Wabash experience as well. The skills that I have developed will prove to be very beneficial to me and the wonderful people that I have met throughout my internship have helped improve the way that I think about Wabash. I would like to thank the Schroeder Center for Career Development for hiring me as a summer intern. I have enjoyed working with everyone here and look forward to seeing what becomes of the plans that we have though out the year.

Terrance Pigues ‘14 -As I shake hands with alumnus Tim Lyons ’91 in the lobby of where my internship is located, I can feel that something isn’t right.

We walk into the office of Wasabi Rabbit and what I originally interpreted as a room of future coworkers laughing and enjoying their job, quickly became room filled with silence and greetings. I couldn’t put my finger on what this eerie feeling was that I received. Suddenly, my boss invited to his office and shut the door. He said, “You know Terrance, you don’t need to wear a suit. It’s summertime in New York City…”. Finally a sign of relief came over me and all I could think about getting back to Scott Crawford’s office to fuse at him about how his work-attire policy made me an outcast on my first day on the job! But as soon as I had mastered the professional New York summertime style, the magic at the office began to unfold.

This internship has taken me for an adventure from the very first day on the job, and I’m not done yet. After I got the chance to meet everyone at the office and briefings were done (in reference to what I would be doing for the next couple of weeks), my duties as an account executive intern were underway.

With an understanding of what I was supposed to do and a good ole’ Wabash alumnus as my boss, Tim threw me into the world of marketing/advertising head-first to work with him in the digital world.

Getting Into It

My job started in full swing! There was no time to ease my way into the workload because a lot needed to be done and we were the ones responsible for getting it done. As you can imagine, the first week was rough. And it wasn’t just the workload that made it so either. My internship started mid-summer because I was completing a study-abroad program in Shangahi, China. Upon my arrival back to the US, I was severely jet-lagged, but that didn’t stop me from going straight to New York from China. Every day of the first week I was in bed by 10pm. It was also brought to my attention that I wasn’t the only intern in the office as well that I was one of three interns here! This really pushed me to speed up my learning curve; I didn’t want to slow down progress because I was the “new guy”. Everything my boss discussed with me I googled, so I could learn what he was talking about and learn how to do it. I stayed later than all other employees my first week and spent that time reading information about the digital marketing industry and bringing myself up to speed with everyone else. I reviewed client info with my boss and even learn how to use certain programs that he used to help understand how users would interact with websites (user interface) in a few days. We then put my new found abilities to work and developed presentations to show to clients all in the first week! To top things off, my boss and I enjoyed an eleven hour workday , my first Friday, to finish up some documents that needed to be completed before the weekend. This was my introduction to New York City…

The CEO wants to meet.

My second week on the job, John Mustin (the CEO of Wasabi Rabbit) returns from a meeting in Washington, DC. I had already had my workload nearly full to capacity but then I receive a Skype chat from the CEO which read, “let’s meet in my office in 15 minutes.” He called that meeting to explain what he wanted me to do for the company during my internship. In addition to already working with my boss and his clients, now the CEO wanted me to help update their company website with wide array of new information. He also has me taking the lead to plan a small conference for Wasabi Rabbit, which will take place in the fall. That task is the easiest because I can use my skills developed over time as the PR Chair for the Malcolm X Institute of Black Studies. However, for the rest of the action items, I would be putting in some serious work!

My boss ditches me!

A couple weeks in, I learn that my boss has a vacation coming up very soon. After asking him whether or not I would receive a vacation and being told no, Tim explains to me that I would still be meeting with his clients and finalizing some variables for him. And so I did. Tim’s second in command and myself met with the clients this week and finalized everything that he needed of us while he is away. And I’ve still been working on multiple projects as well. He won’t be disappointed when he returns.

“Concrete jungle where dreams are made of…”

Thanks to the Small Business Internship Fund, being in New York has definitely been a fun experience. The people are always moving. The city is bustling. And most importantly, I’m enjoying the opportunities here. I used the career services mentor link to locate alumni and meet with them as well because no Wabash funded internship should is complete without networking with post-graduate Wallies! I enjoyed an awesome birthday and even got treated by a “Danni” too. All around, I’ve experienced an awesome city with a lot of diversity. And who can forget about standing in Time Square, starring at a giant poster of the epic movie, “The Dark Knight Rises”. Currently, I still a few weeks left so I should probably get back to work while my boss is on vacation because secretly, “I’m running the show.”